After a volatile day of trading in which the markets seesawed between gains and losses, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 0.5 percent, a result driven in party by the release of better-than-expected jobs data for July.

The Dow closed up 60.93 points after gaining as much as 171 points early in the day and dropping as much as 245. But after plummeting 512 points on Thursday, it was still down 5.8 percent for the week, the Dow’s worst week since March 2009.

The Nasdaq and S&P 500 also cycled between the green and the red on Friday. The Nasdaq closed down 23.98 — 0.94 percent — while the S&P was essentially flat, closing down 0.69 points, or 0.06 percent.

Gold closed up $5.40 an ounce at $1664.40.

While the morning gains came off of the news that the U.S. unemployment rate had fallen to 9.1 percent and that 117,000 jobs were created in July, the afternoon heights came as Italy pledged to make progress in its debt crisis.

The boomeranging on Wall Street came after major financial markets in Asia and Europe tumbled Friday amid growing fears that the global economy is headed back into recession.

Bleak economic data drowned out any glimmers of hope Thursday in the United States, and the global markets responded with selloffs Friday.

Japan’s Nikkei closed down 360 points, 3.7 percent of its value, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was off nearly 940 points, 4.3 percent of its value. The Shanghai Composite closed down two percent, while the Taiwan Weighted closed down 5.6 percent.

In Europe, markets were mixed, though mostly down. The Stoxx Europe index dropped 1.8 percent Friday in its sixth straight day of losses. England’s FTSE 100 closed down 2.5 percent, while markets in Belgium, Switzerland and Germany all fell 1 percent to2.5 percent.